Looming China-Japan conflict

S P SETH

China-Japan relations are at a crisis point. The trigger this time is the ownership of the Senkaku islands (known as Diaoyu in China) in the East China Sea, with both China and Japan claiming sovereignty. Japan first acquired the islands after the Sino-Japanese war in 1896. During WW11, these were lost to the United States. But since 1971, when the US returned the Senkakus to Japan, these are under Japanese control. Beijing claims that these islands were historically part of China, and the US had no business returning them to Japan.

The recent escalation of tensions in China-Japan relations started with the Japanese government’s purchase of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from their private Japanese owners to reinforce its state sovereignty. Which has led China to send naval patrol boats to the area to affirm the seriousness of its own claim. There are reports that Chinese fisherman will soon be going to the contested waters for fishing, possibly under protection of Chinese naval vessels.

These developments have occasioned an unprecedented show of national anger in China targeting Japanese establishments, big and small, leading them to shut down their operations. Apparently, there was an element of state encouragement behind all this. But these are being carefully controlled lest such public anger turn on state institutions for unrelated reasons.

There are several aspects to China-Japan hostility. First, on China’ side, there is the century of humiliation starting with the Sino-Japanese war of 1895-96, the 1930’s occupation of Manchuria followed by the brutality and atrocities of WW 11. The Japanese invasion of China was a horrendous affair and the memories are still fresh with the Chinese. China believes that Japan never made suitable and adequate amends for their wartime crimes, and remains unrepentant. Instead, it is still clinging on to old relics like the Diaoyu islands, as China would see.

Over and above China’s historical claim to the islands, they are also seen now as valuable real estate in terms of potential oil and gas resources on the ocean surface. Besides, they are rich in fisheries. Tokyo feels that this is indeed the real reason for China’s new interest in the islands. These two, history and prospective gas and oil discoveries, are important factors behind China’s sovereignty claim. A resurgent and powerful China is seeking to assert its claim and thereby announce a new Chinese era in regional politics and strategy, as it is doing in regard to other maritime disputes with some of its neighbors.

Japan raises China’s ire for its perceived arrogance in refusing to come to terms with its wartime crimes with suitable contrition. Such arrogance comes up time and again when some Japanese prime minister or minister visits the Yasukini shrine, which is a memorial to Japan’s war dead, including some of its WW11 generals charged with war crimes. Similarly, there is the issue of Japanese school textbooks that tend to whitewash Japan’s wartime record. Another problem that has cropped up, from time to time, is Japan’s attempt to ignore, as much as it can, its disgraceful record of “comfort women” (local prostitutes) it requisitioned for its soldiers during its occupation of Asian countries.

What it means is that the current crisis over the Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands has a history involving China’s deeply felt humiliation when it was weak with Japan treading all over it.  Now that it is strong and powerful, it might be going overboard to right the wrongs of the past. As for Japan, it is not willing to give any ground on its ownership claim on the islands, which is under its control. On both sides it is a question of national pride, even more so in China with seething anger over Japan’s wartime record.

It is also a difficult political time in China with the leadership transition in the country to be formalized at the 18^th Party Congress to be held soon. Because of the Bo Xilai factor and his wife’s murky murder verdict, there is a certain political shadow hanging over the country needing clear resolution. The expulsion from the Party of Bo Xilai, followed by his likely trial on criminal charges, is supposed to clear the political climate. That would remain to be seen. For instance, only recently there were all sorts of rumors when the presumptive president Xi Jinping was not seen publicly for two weeks. Against this political backdrop, the national outrage against Japan, involving attacks on Japanese businesses and establishments in China, is a useful distraction and a mobilization technique.

The CPC, however, is always mindful of keeping popular demonstrations under close watch because nationalism is a beast that might take an unwelcome turn, even turning on the Party, for all sorts of reasons. The Party appears to be already taking steps to dampen down some of the anti-Japanese hysteria. But these protests serve a useful purpose from time to time to distract, as at present, from the country’s slowing economic growth, internal political wrangling from Bo Xilai affair and the leadership transition.

Whatever might be China’s internal political imperatives and compulsions, its external ramifications are quite worrying by way of increased regional tensions. Japan has its own ultra nationalists like the Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara who wanted to buy the Senkakus from its Japanese owners, thus forcing the national government to pre-empt him with its purchase. Indeed, Japan’s centrist ruling Democratic Party of Japan looks like it will lose the ensuing election to a right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party that has just elected Shinzo Abe, a fervent nationalist, as its president. With Abe becoming the next prime minister of Japan, the political temperature between the two countries is likely to rise further.

Beijing, however, is not interested in Japan’s internal political dynamics and is furious over the islands’ deal. While this is essentially an issue between China and Japan, any military conflict between them is likely to involve the United States on behalf of its ally, Japan. The US secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, has visited both Tokyo and Beijing emphasizing the need for both countries to sort out the islands’ issue peacefully, lest it develops into a military conflict that could involve the United States.

The People’s Daily of China has observed that Beijing might take punitive economic measures against Japan, if it doesn’t back off. Highlighting Japan’s economic paralysis of the last two decades, further compounded by the global financial crisis, it warned that, “Japan’s economy lacks immunity to Chinese economic measures”, even though admitting that it was a “double-edged sword” for China as the two countries’ economies are interdependent in many ways. It added,“ Amidst a struggle that touches on territorial sovereignty, if Japan continues its provocations China will inevitably take on the fight.” And it doesn’t take long for economic warfare to take on the shape of a military conflict.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Australia’s China dilemma

Sushil Seth

Because of its historical beginnings as a British colony, Australia didn’t need to make hard choices on the international stage. It simply followed Britain, the mother country.

During WW11 when Japan was over-running one Asian country after the other pushing Britain out of the region, Australia feared for its security drawing closer to the United States. After WW11, it became part of the US-led ANZUS alliance.

But now with the rise of China and the resultant strategic competition between it and the United States, Australia is in a serious predicament.  China is now its biggest trading partner, with much of its export income coming from trade with that country.

The predicament is, therefore, centered on how best to balance its relationship with both these countries to maximize Australia’s advantage.

This is where it becomes tricky, because Australia not only wants to keep its strategic alliance with the United States but also is seeking to further strengthen it against the backdrop of China’s rise and the perceived security threat.

To this end, it is providing new base facilities for the US military as part of its new energized Asia-Pacific policy, as announced by the US President Barack Obama in an address to the Australian parliament when he was last visiting Australia.

Predictably, China is not happy, as it fears that this new development is directed against it. And Beijing has let it be known in no uncertain terms. Australia, of course, denies this. It regards its ties with the United States as part of its long-standing strategic relationship with the United States without any anti-China connotation.

The problem though is that even within Australia, there are some important voices that counsel against aligning too much with the United States in US-China strategic rivalry.

But they are not politically important enough to make any difference so far because Australia’s political establishment, by and large, favors US strategic connection.

This is for two reasons. First is that Canberra’ US alliance is an insurance against any security threat to Australia, and China is seen as a potential threat as indicated in its 2009 defense white paper.

Second, by being welcoming of the US presence and engagement in the Asia-Pacific region, Canberra hopes that the United States wouldn’t one day simply walk away from the region, leaving Australia to its own devices.

 However, those in Australia who would like a more nuanced relationship with the US argue that Canberra should rather play a role in persuading the United States to share power with a rising China.

In this way, the US-China relationship would be managed peacefully, thus avoiding a potential military conflict sometime in the future as happened in the past between a rising Germany and the established European powers in WW1, and to Hitler’s rise leading to WW11.

An important proponent of this broad argument is Professor Hugh White at the Australian National University, formerly a senior defense department official. He has argued his line in his book, The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power.

It is believed that China will become the world’s biggest economy in a decade or so, thus leaving the US behind. Its military power is also growing, though the US will still remain the world’s strongest military power for many years to come.

Even at this stage China has amassed a strong military deterrent, if not denial, capability to make the United States cautious about exercising or using its superior military power against China.

Therefore, to avoid any mischance of a US-China strategic rivalry breaking into a war, it is considered necessary that US should accommodate China into a power-sharing arrangement.

Paul Keating, a former Australian prime minister, is another one cautioning his country against drifting towards confrontation with China as a US ally. He recently said that peace in the region lay in accommodating China as a “great power”.

He added, “The presumption has been that the foreign policy of Australia is somehow synonymous with the foreign policy of the United States.”  Which “could never have been broadly true, notwithstanding the points of coincidence from time to time in our respective national interests.”

He, therefore, advocates a more independent approach for Canberra in its relations with the United States. Incidentally, Keating chairs an international advisory council of the China Development Bank.

There are problems with this thesis, not with the idea of sharing power but its feasibility. First, it assumes power sharing as if it is there for the US to give and for China to partake.

International relations do not operate like that. The US might be the dominant power in the region but there are other regional actors that might not go along with a regional duopoly between the US and China. 

A solution to this might lie through creating a concert of powers as in the Europe of the 19^th century to create balance of power. Even that didn’t stop military conflict eventually leading to WW1.

In its supposed Asian reincarnation, this might involve other regional heavy weights like Japan and India. But China might regard it with suspicion as Japan and, probably, India too is tilted toward the US. Therefore, Beijing is unlikely to relish the balance of power idea tilted against it.

China might also find the idea of being assigned a power-sharing role as condescending hearkening back to the days when the European powers, including the US, decided what was good for China.

The humiliation of 200 years of European domination of China is too fresh in Chinese mind to accept arrangements, even of an enhanced power-sharing role, as demeaning.

Besides, who decides what sort of power sharing is involved? For instance, China basically wants the US out of the Asia-Pacific region that it regards as its own political and strategic space since 14^th and 15^th century. And the European colonial meddling, in their view, was a historical aberration.

Now that China is powerful, it wants to restore, what it sees as, its historical destiny. It, therefore, wants the US, as Beijing sees it, to stop interfering and/or encouraging some regional countries to put forward their rival sovereignty claims to South China Sea islands. The US is not willing to abandon its regional allies to China’s wishes.

In other words, it might be difficult for both China and the United States even to go beyond the first base of a regional sovereignty issue.

It would, therefore, seem that strategists like Hugh White and former politicians like Paul Keating are barking up the wrong tree.  In international relations, where national interests are involved, there are no neat solutions. 

China’s Bo Xilai to continue haunting the CCP

By Sushil Seth

China’s political tempest, unleashed early this year with the removal of Chongqing metropolis’ powerful boss and party leader, Bo Xilai, is still causing low level disturbance which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is trying to contain. And this is being done at two levels.

The first is how best to deal with Gu Kailai, Bo’s wife, without mixing it up with her husband’s Party situation. She has already been tried for murdering the British businessman, Neil Heywood and given a suspended death sentence. Which, in some ways, is more sinister because the issue can be revisited depending on the exigencies of the situation at a given time. And she can be forced to sing any song based on the lyrics written by the CCP headquarters, implicating her husband or others.

One of the mitigating circumstances that has saved her from the gallows, for the time being at least, is that she was mentally unhinged at the time of poisoning Heywood because of the maternal instinct to protect her son, Bo Guagua. Heywood had allegedly threatened to destroy Bo over a failed real estate deal. But this is dismissed by Heywood’s friends, who did everything to smooth Bo’s induction into the British educational environment.

The second issue is how to deal with Bo Xilai, believed to have been seeking to mobilize a Cultural Revolution kind of frenzy. That is what Premier Wen Jiabao feared at the time. Bo was engaged in some wide-ranging campaign to target gangsters and mafia elements, leading to the arrest and torture of some people. He was also playing on the widening income disparities between the rich and the poor, using Maoist red banner as a rallying point.

His police chief, Wang Lijun, was instrumental in a wide-ranging violent police crackdown in Chongqing at Bo’s behest. Wang later sought asylum in the American consulate in Chengdu (not granted) and spilled the beans on Gu’s murder of Neil Heywood.  Despite the odious side of Bo’s violence, many in Chongqing reportedly still remember his measures to help poor.

Bo, though, was pushing his political button too hard to capitalize on the Mao legend with the Chinese people to reach one of the highest prizes of a place in the 9-member standing committee of the CCP, which is China’s ultimate governing body.  And he apparently had some support within the party hierarchy. Which made the dominant party leadership nervous and keen to prevent him from a place in the standing committee, and then using it as a platform to subvert the system and tailor it to his political ambitions.

But a chain of events turned the tables on Bo Xilai when his police chief, Wang Lijun, sought asylum at the US consulate in Chengdu. He spilled the beans on Gu’s murder of Neil Haywood, and other gory stuff of torture and killings under Bo’s political dispensation, of which Wang was the principal instrument and for which he would be separately tried at some point of time.

All this was happening to coincide with the National People’s Congress session in March. It was an opportune time for the ruling faction to remove Bo from his Chongqing leadership position and from the politburo. And that is where he is languishing, possibly in some sort of detention, to face charges at a later time.

Gu’s case was a priority to get it out of international headlines as China’s new Lady Macbeth after Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, who played a major role in organizing Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution turning the country upside down.

 Bo Xilai is likely to face charges of violent breach of party discipline, including corruption and whatever else can be thrown at him. He is likely to be expelled from the party, and might even be charged with multiple other stuff. In this way both Gu and Bo will become non-persons before the transition to the new Party leadership later in the year at the 18^th Party Congress. Even though it looks like a very neat script, there is always a danger of things not quite working as planned.

Some believe that that Bo and his wife were framed, as the former was threatening to undermine the existing cozy system of a nexus between political and economic power in the current structure.

Indeed, China’s party echelons seem divided over the way Gu and Bo cases be handled. That is probably why Gu’s sentence is a bit tentative allowing the CCP time to make up its mind finally over time.

 The so-called liberals in the CCP suspect that Gu and Bo might receive lenient treatment because of their lineage, both being the children of revolutionary heroes. While the Left (Maoists) believe that Bo has been framed and Gu’s murder charge is a way to get at him. According to one Chinese professor, “The group of capitalist roaders [the terminology used against Mao’s enemies in the Cultural Revolution] has brought down the socialist roader”, meaning Bo Xilai. 

Professor Han Deqiang reportedly added, “This means crisis and turmoil for China.” Indeed, the feelings are so high among some Chinese netizens (on the internet) that they believe Gu’s picture on the Chinese TV at the time of her trial was indeed her double, being so plump compared to her real image.

The attempt by some to posit Bo as some kind of a popular hero is overdrawn. Bo and his wife were highly privileged and powerful couple because of the system in which they operated, with their son studying abroad and driving flash cars. And they were also privileged, being the scions of revolutionary leaders.

In other words, it was more like a power grab by Bo to reach among the top nine standing committee members and then to maneuver to capture power. But he was outmaneuvered and lost.

However, this might not be the last word on the subject because Bo’s image as the personification of the Maoist ideal of an equal and revolutionary society will likely haunt the CCP. And if he is sent to the purgatory, he might even become a martyr figure as the true heir of Mao’s legend. 

Flashpoints in Asia-Pacific

S P SETH

While Mao Zedong was the founder of communist China, Deng Xiaoping was the architect of its economic miracle and great power resurgence. Even as China was going through spectacular economic growth during the eighties and nineties, Deng cautioned the country’s leaders to “bide your time and hide your capabilities.” The first part of his advice was spot on as China was navigating the difficult task of building and modernizing in an international environment not entirely favorable to the country. By concentrating on economic growth while maintaining relatively low international political profile right up to the beginning of the new century, China is now the world’s second largest economy with its high international political and military profile on display for any country or countries doubting its resolve and strength.

While China’s leaders did bide their time as suggested by Deng, there is some argument if they are a bit hasty in projecting and asserting their power. The argument arises in the context of China’s increasingly tense relationship with some of its regional neighbors on the question of contested sovereignty over the island chains in the South China Sea that it claims in entirety. China’s parliament passed a law to this effect in 1992, thus excluding any regional claimant(s) from what it regards as its internal jurisdiction. In other words, any external interference to thwart Chinese sovereignty will be resisted and excluded. But China was still lacking in political and military muscle to enforce its sovereign control. Therefore, while continuing to insist that South China Sea was its territorial sea, Beijing also let it be known that it was willing to sort out issues through negotiations and/or through some sort of joint exploration mechanism for its rich underwater resources.

But nothing came of it as Beijing continued to claim exclusive sovereignty over the island chains of Spratly and Paracel islands. This island chain(s) is also contested by Vietnam, as well as the Philippines, among other regional countries.  And this has led to some naval incidents between China and Vietnam, as well as between China and the Philippines. Like China in the early nineties, Vietnam has recently passed legislation enshrining its sovereignty over these islands. Which, in turn, has led China to deploy a garrison on the islands to assert and safeguard its territoriality. It has also founded Sansha city in the South China Sea to cement its control over 2 million square kilometers of territorial waters. How all this will play out is difficult to say, but South China Sea is becoming a regional flashpoint with unpredictable consequences.

Vietnam and the Philippines are obviously no match for a resurgent and powerful China. But their growing security ties with the United States will raise the stakes. While the US maintains a neutral position on the sovereignty issue, it favors a code of conduct between China and the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) for dealing with disputes in the South China Sea. China, on the other hand, is not willing to formalize the issue to give it the character of a territorial dispute. China had a victory of sorts when a recent ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Cambodia failed to issue an agreed communiqué to avoid any mention of the South China Sea issue. Being considerably beholden to China for economic aid and political support, the host of the meeting, Cambodia’s foreign affairs minister, ruled out a communiqué because “ I have told my colleagues that the meeting of the ASEAN foreign ministers is not a court, a place to give a verdict about the dispute.” With its growing power and considerable economic leverage, China is seeking to shape the regional agenda to its advantage.

Will it prevail? It will obviously be a tough fight, as the United States is not wiling to be edged out of the region. The US regards itself as a Pacific power with its considerable economic and strategic interests. It is still the dominant military power, with a large naval fleet deployed in the region and a nexus of security ties with a number of regional countries, including Japan, South Korea and Australia. In expounding the US interest to see a peaceful South China Sea, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has maintained that, “No nation can fail to be concerned by the increase in tensions, the uptick in confrontational rhetoric and disagreement over resource exploitation.” And she has urged that the disputes between China and its regional neighbors be resolved “without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and without use of force.” China’s message for the United States basically is to butt out of the region. But that is where the issue has the potential of starting an accidental military clash or, even, something bigger. For instance, China’s shadowing of US naval movements through South China Sea might create an ugly situation, as there have recently been some naval incidents.

China is a rising power. And it is determined to make it to the top. The United States and its regional allies in Asia-Pacific are determined to check and counter-balance it. China appears confident. There is a sense that China might have to tough it out for some years until the United States is too tired from its financial woes and military overreach to pick up a fight. Even if this analysis is true, the transitional period of 5 to 10 years that China might need to establish its primacy will be hazardous, as the United States and its regional allies seek to confront China. The situation remains tense both with the Philippines and Vietnam. There have already been some naval incidents. In the midst of it all an arms race is going on, with countries in the region buying the latest in weaponry. China’s own defense expenditure has been rising at double digit figures in the last few years. The South China Sea ownership issue is also tied up with freedom of navigation, as a significant part of international trade, including oil, passes through these strategically important waters.

At the same time, there are problems between China and Japan in the East China Sea over ownership of Senkaku islands, resulting in some unpleasant naval incidents. And Japan happens to be an important security ally of the United States. North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the unresolved issue of Korean unification is another live issue, with China committed to protect North Korea. The status of Taiwan is also a flashpoint, with China regarding it as a renegade province and determined to use force to bring about unification if Taipei were to declare independence.

The immediate flashpoint is likely to be South China Sea centered on the status of the Spratly and Paracel islands, and the passage through it of US naval ships that China might seek to impede or intercept at some point. In other words, the great game in the Asia-Pacific is starting in earnest and there is no knowing how it will end.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Asia-Pacific’s great power game

By S.P.SETH

While China continues to have problems with some of its Southeast Asian neighbors over competing claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea waters, the United States is going ahead with strengthening its naval presence in the Pacific.

The backdrop to this is a threat from a rising China to edge out the United States from the region and assert its dominance. The US is not taking it lying down as it regards Asia-Pacific region strategically and economically important to its national interests.

Some recent developments highlight the dangers. When Barack Obama visited Australia last November, the two countries agreed to upgrade their defense ties with Australia providing facilities in its north for the basing and rotation of US troops.

The US will also have naval and air facilities in Australia’s north and west, apparently to deal with any threat from China. At the same time, there are reports that the Australian territory of Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean might be readied for surveillance of China’s growing military presence in the region.

China has reacted angrily, as pointed out in an earlier article, conveying its displeasure strongly to Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr, when he recently visited China, calling it a throw back to the Cold War era.

The reaction was even more pointed when Australia’s Defense Minister followed his ministerial colleague on a China visit.   Defense Minister Stephen Smith and his entourage reportedly left their mobile phones and laptops in Hong Kong before proceeding on their official China visit.

This precaution was considered necessary because such devices were believed to have been compromised during previous ministerial visits to China.  

If China were engaging in spying on visiting Australian dignitaries, its main reason would be to access important information about its defense ties with the United States and to what extent these are directed against China.

 It caused quite a flutter here when a new book by a an Australian journalist reportedly revealed that Australia’s 2009 defense white paper contained a secret unpublished section that contained alarming war scenarios with China.

Stephen Smith has, of course, dismissed these claims. But the point is that there is a lot of distrust and misunderstanding on both sides.

 Australia is engaged in a delicate balancing act between China and the USA. China is now Australia’s biggest trading partner with much of its export income from exports to China.

Concurrently, the United States is its closest strategic partner, viewed as underwriting its security from a regional threat, apparently from China. Australia’s upgraded security ties with the US are a form of insurance.

It is feared that China might at some point be tempted to do to Australia what Japan did to China and other regional countries before and during WW11. Which is to attack and occupy the country to access steady and adequate supplies of raw materials for its economic growth.

This is reflected in growing popular opposition in Australia to Chinese investments in resource industry (like mining), and agricultural land.

Peter Hartcher, international editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, cautioned in a recent column that such opposition to Chinese investments was dangerous, revoking “Japan’s policy of occupying its nearest neighbors in the 1930s [that] was transformed into an all-out war after the US imposed a trade embargo on it. The Pacific War followed and Japan threatened Australia with invasion until the US defeated it…”

This caution, by itself, is indicative of the deep fear in Australia of China’s growing power and the consequent rationale of an even stronger security connection with the US.

Another important development is the growing warmth in US-Vietnam relations. Although the two countries were bitter enemies not long ago, the turn around in their relations is an extraordinary development. 

An important reason is their shared concern about China’s assertive role in the region, especially its sovereignty claim over the South China Sea.

The US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent visit to the Cam Ranh Bay base in Vietnam, once a US naval base during the Vietnam War, is a testimony to the new warmth in their relationship. 

During his Vietnam visit, he didn’t mince his words about the US’s desire to make Cam Ranh Bay once again into a US base, but this time against China, if need be.

He declared that, “It will be particularly important to be able to work with partners like Vietnam; to be able to use harbors like this as we move our ships from our ports on the [US] West Coast, [and] our stations here in the Pacific.”  

Though Vietnam is playing down any US military connection, it is significant that the two countries, last year, signed an agreement on defense cooperation.

It is pertinent to point out that Cam Ranh Bay is one of the South China Sea’s best natural harbors, and hence an ideal spot to watch and impede China’s moves in these contested waters.

Not surprisingly, the deputy chief of general staff of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) believes that, “The South China Sea is not America’s business… It is between China and its neighbors.”

This is precisely the problem because there are multiple regional claimants to South China Sea islands, Vietnam among them. There was recently a naval spat when Vietnam accused Chinese ships of cutting the cables of a survey ship it was deploying in its (claimed also by China) waters.

It is therefore easy to see the shared strategic ground between the US and Vietnam in regard to South China Sea sovereignty issue.

As South China Sea is a busy shipping lane for trade and passage of naval ships, it is feared that China might interfere with such passage claiming it as its national highway.

In the midst of all these regional tensions (as also between China and the Philippines) the US has announced that it would be increasing the size of its naval deployment in the Pacific from 50 to 60 per cent.

Panetta has reportedly said the US would maintain six aircraft carriers in the region, complemented by the arrival of Joint Strike Fighters and the Virginia-class fast-attack submarines. China too is modernizing and expanding its naval forces, including “carrier killer” anti-ship missiles and submarines.

 Apart from China and the USA, some of the regional countries too are engaged in building up their navies. All in all, there is enough happening in terms of naval acquisition and deployment to cause real concern for regional stability. And if one add to it Taiwan and North Korea, the picture looks even more depressing.

In this great game of power re-alignment in the Asia-Pacific region, Panetta has emphasized: “Make no mistake—in a steady, deliberate and sustainable way---the United States military is rebalancing and brings enhanced capabilities to this vital region.”

A Chinese strategist doesn’t share Panetta’s enthusiasm. His take is that, “Even though the US has a wonderful plan of pivoting, rebalancing or whatever into Asia-Pacific affairs…I really doubt they can find the trillions of dollars that is needed.”

Whatever the future, and it doesn’t seem terribly inviting, the great power game in the Asia-Pacific region is truly begun.

China not happy with Australia’s upgraded US ties

By S.P.SETH

During his first China visit recently, Australia’s new foreign minister, Bob Carr, received an earful of Chinese reprimand over the country’s enhanced strategic ties with the United States. With President Barack Obama’s increased focus on Asia-Pacific in the US foreign and strategic priorities, Australia has become even more important in the US scheme of things. As part of this the US will have base facilities in the country’s north and west for deployment of US troops and other assets.

There are also reports that Australia’s Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean might be developed into a base for US surveillance and other activities. There is no doubt that all these developments are designed against a perceived Chinese threat, even though this is formally denied.

China obviously is not happy, believing that Australia is becoming part of the US strategy to contain China. And Bob Car was told unmistakably that China was not impressed with such an outdated throwback to the Cold War era.

Australia’s foreign minister had to do some explaining, not only to China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, but also to Lieutenant General Wei Fenghe, deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, as well as to Wang Jiarui,  director of the International Department of the Communist Party. This was a way of conveying the intensity of China’s concern at government, military and the party levels.

In Bob Carr’s words, “The most objective way of saying it is my three Chinese partners today invited me to talk about enhanced Australian defense co-operation with the United States.”

He added, “ I think their view can be expressed that the time for Cold War alliances have long since past.”

Putting forth Canberra’s viewpoint, Carr explained, “ … that an American presence in the Asia-Pacific has helped underpin stability there and created a climate in which the peaceful economic development ---including that of China, has been able to occur.”

Obviously, Bob Carr’s explanations didn’t cut much ice with his Chinese partners. Australia will now be viewed with even greater suspicion as part of a containment ring, including Japan.

Even though China is now Australia’s largest trading partner, their relationship leaves much to be desired. Ironically, the relationship started to deteriorate sharply under Australia’s then newly elected mandarin-speaking Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who described himself as “a brutal realist on China.”

He offended the Chinese leadership by publicly advising them to hold dialogue with the Dalai Lama. And it was under him, as  Prime Minister, that Australia’s 2009 White Paper on defense saw China as an increasing threat to regional stability, recommending a significant increase in Australia’s defense profile, including doubling of its submarine fleet.

The tensions increased when Australia granted a visa to the exiled Uighur leader, Rebiya Kadeer, to visit Australia in 2009.

 On top of it all, China was unhappy because its concerted efforts to invest in Australian resource companies were denied, in some cases, on grounds of national interest. The same argument has prevailed more recently against the Chinese communications giant, Huawei’s, seeking to build Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN).

In its worldwide search to secure resource materials for its economic development, Australia is for China a huge and tempting quarry, not to speak of its vast agricultural lands. China is hungry to get a hold on it for two reasons.

First, of course, is the need for uninterrupted access to needed raw materials. Australia is a stable political and social entity that makes it an attractive proposition.

Second: with its control of Australian resources China will also be able to keep a lid on price rises of these materials, such as iron ore and coal.

As an analogy, Japan’s quest, during WW11, to impose a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere among its neighbors, comes into mind. Though the two situations are different but the goal is identical.

Which is to have access to natural resources and materials to make China into an economically and politically powerful nation. And Australia has plenty of them.

This is where economic and strategic factors converge for China, creating fears in Australia and other regional countries about its intentions.

China looks like creating its own version of the Japanese East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, kind of a new Middle Kingdom. And the regional countries are not looking forward to it.

 It is not just Australia that is seeking insurance against a Chinese threat through enhanced defense ties with the United States; other regional countries are doing it too.

The Philippines, for instance, is presently in a tense military stand off with China over the Scarborough Shoal, with China claiming the whole of South China Sea as its territorial lake. Even though some of the South China Sea Islands are closer to neighboring Southeast Asian countries, as is Scarborough Shoal to the Philippines, China claims everything by virtue of its sovereign claim of the Sea. And it is not prepared to countenance negotiations and/or mediation.

And with its presumed sovereign claim of the South China Sea, Beijing might one day interfere with or impede the freedom of navigation through one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

As Peter Hartcher, international editor of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote in a recent column, “ Its [China’s] willfulness troubles other countries. Australia is only one of many Asia-Pacific states that looks to US for reassurance in the face of doubts about China’s intentions.”

He adds, “If it angers China, it is within its power to ease those doubts…”

But don’t count on it. On the other hand, China seems intent on going its own way.

US-China tussle for power

By S P SETH

The recent China visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and  Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, was overshadowed by the furore caused following the escape to the US embassy in Beijing of the blind Chinese human rights activist, Chen Guangcheng, to seek asylum. Chen has been a prickly thorn on the government’s side, having internationally embarrassed China by exposing cases of forced abortions and sterilization in the rural areas as part of China’s one-child policy. After serving a 4-year prison term on charges of “sedition”, he was under house arrest when he made a risky escape for asylum to the US embassy. Not surprisingly it caused a crisis of sorts in US-China relations, with Clinton and Geithner right in the middle of it during their visit.

Which only shows the fragility of US-China relations, with Beijing accusing the US of interfering in its internal affairs. However, according to some recent reports, this latest conundrum might be managed, with the Chinese government allowing Chen to go to the US for studies with his wife and two children. It might be a convenient end to a difficult diplomatic crisis. But it would be highly embarrassing for China to allow this, being tantamount to admitting that Chen’s earlier imprisonment on “sedition” charges was a political act.

Even though Beijing is averse to admitting that it has a human rights problem, it does at times say that its human rights situation is improving. Which, by implication, means that there has been a problem in this area. The US obviously pushes this button to promote democracy in China, with tolerance for dissent and freedom. With its economic success, China, however, has increasingly taken a more assertive position, even promoting its path as an alternative model for the world. As the US and China increasingly take opposite positions on a whole host of issues, their disagreement is likely to become shriller, with less scope for peaceful management of their relations.

If diplomacy is the art of managing relations between nations, the US and China will need to work harder. With both keen to assert their primacy in the Asia-Pacific region, the scope for managing their ambitions is likely to become tougher. China has sovereignty claims on South China Sea, it contests maritime boundaries with Japan in the East China Sea, and is having problems with Vietnam, the Philippines and other regional countries over their competing claims in the South China Sea island chains. Which has led to naval incidents between China and some of its Asian neighbors.

Presently, the relations between China and the Philippines are quite tense over the disputed Scarborough shoal, a chain of reefs and uninhabited islands in the South China Sea. The South China Sea is rich in oil, gas and fishery. A Le Monde report has quoted a Chinese study which says that the area could contain the equivalent of 213 billion barrels of oil: 80 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s established reserves. No wonder there are a number of claimants to such potential wealth. China and the Philippines have done some show of military muscles, and the public opinion in the Philippines is quite exercised over China’s blanket sovereignty claim. And it is a US ally.

Although the US is ostensibly not taking sides on these issues, it has further strengthened its strategic ties with the Philippines, Vietnam and other regional countries. Now that the US is disengaging from Afghanistan, it has signaled its intention to become more focused on the Asia-Pacific region. Which hasn’t gone well with China.

Apart from its problematic relations with some of its regional neighbors, China is lately having more than its usual internal tensions; the most recent being the Chen affair. Chen was helped in his escapade to the US embassy by some of his activist friends who are now in trouble with the authorities. The sensitivity of the internal situation was graphically demonstrated following the Arab Spring when the Chinese authorities blocked access on the internet to material regarding popular upsurge in Tunisia and Egypt, fearing a contagion effect in China.

And recently, there was the Bo Xilai affair, when the Chongqing Party boss was removed from all his posts and his wife arrested on suspected murder of a British resident of that city. Bo was starting to threaten the Party hierarchy by raising the banner of revolutionary spirit of the Mao Zedong era. And the embers of the fire, lit by Bo, are not completely extinguished.

It is such sensitivity and resistance to political reform by relaxing the Party’s monopoly over power that gives the US a certain moral and political advantage over China. But this only makes China even more resolute on maintaining and asserting the Party’s control within the country. The Party leadership fears that the US is using democracy and human rights as an attempt to foment internal trouble in their country to the point of destabilizing China. This is another problematic issue in China-US relationship among a number of other issues clouding their relationship.

The core issue is the contest for primacy in the Asia-Pacific region between the US and China. Until now, the US has ruled the waves in Asia-Pacific, as in much in the rest of the world. Militarily, the US is still the most powerful country in the world. In the Asia-Pacific region, though, China is seeking to displace it through a mix of its economic, political and military muscle. Indeed, China believes it is none of the US’ business to be poking around in its neighborhood where, in Beijing’s view, China’s primacy, historically and geo-strategically, is well enshrined. Indeed, from this viewpoint, China’s loss of regional primacy during the last over 150 years was simply an aberration. Therefore, a new and stronger China feels justified to reclaim its old domain… so to say.  Which would explain their sovereignty claims over South China Sea and parts of East China Sea and other bits.

But in a world of nation states, historical claims of dominance by old or new empires are more an obstacle than a solution of contentious issues. This brings China into conflict with some of its regional neighbors, and with the United States as the established dominant power as well as an ally of some of China’s Asian neighbors. One way out of this complex web of relations between China and the United States might be to work out some sort of a mechanism to share power over the head of regional countries. But there are problems here because the regional countries might not like the idea of being a pawn in US-China relations. These countries are not inconsequential, like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and so on--- not to speak of Japan. They can forge their own alliances/partnerships to sabotage such plans, if they were ever contemplated.

In any case, China or, for that matter, the United States does not look like sharing power except on its own terms. Which essentially would mean that China or the United States will have to make way for the other. China, as the rising power, would certainly not like to give ground on any of its “core” strategic interests. The US, on the other hand, wants China to be a responsible stakeholder, which essentially means that Beijing shouldn’t rock the boat. These are irreconcilable positions, and spell trouble for the region.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.